


Approval

by Josh89



Series: Eternally Yours [5]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Annabeth uses a lemon-scented shampoo, Annabeth's father remembers him, Asking for permission to propose, Chiron knows Percy wants to propose to Annabeth, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Grover (Percy Jackson) is a Good Friend, Percy Jackson is Good Boyfriend, Percy is very sincere, Percy likes the way it makes her hair smell, Tags Contain Spoilers, That's really why he sent him with Grover, Well that and the fact that Percy is a demigod so he knows how the demigods in question will react, roughly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-26 06:27:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18177059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josh89/pseuds/Josh89
Summary: While Grover and Percy are in San Francisco on a mission for Chiron (to escort a possible pair of demigods back to camp), Percy pays a visit to Annabeth's father, hoping to get his permission to propose to Annabeth.





	Approval

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: Two years after the end of the Giant War, a week before the events of My Oath To Keep.

-Percy Jackson-  
~11 hours ago~  
"I still wish I could come with you".  
"I do too, Annabeth. You know that as well as I do. But Chiron was adamant that it just be Grover and I this time. Grover and I will only be gone for two days. It's not like we haven't been apart for even longer than that before" I said softly.  
Of course, I couldn't tell her that the real reason I was actually going with Grover to find the two possible new demigods Chiron wanted us to find was so that I'd have the opportunity to visit her father's house. I was kind of planning something big as a surprise for Annabeth, and I was going to need her father's permission if I was actually going to go through with it. Unaware of the direction that my thoughts had taken, my girlfriend brushed her lips against mine briefly, hugging me as if she'd never let me go. "I know, Percy... But ever since the war ended almost two years ago, this will be the longest we will have been separated for. I don't know if I can get to sleep without you there as well".  
"Neither do I. But if we never try, we'll never know".  
It was funny, how much the two of us had been changed by our experiences over the past few years. The Annabeth I had met seven years ago would never have admitted anything of the sort, and I would have never responded in the same way. The fact that we had survived two wars had taught us to cherish every moment we got to have with each other I thought. "Percy! Come on, we have to go through security now or we'll miss our flight!" Grover yelled.  
I sighed, pulling Annabeth into one last brief kiss. "I'll IM you as soon as we get to the hotel room, I promise. And the secretary that works at the school that the two demigods attend is meeting us there tomorrow morning, from where we'll go to the school and start looking for the two demigods. She's the one that told Chiron about them".  
Annabeth gave me a confused look. "She knows?"  
I nodded. "She's one of us. A daughter of Athena, according to what Grover's told me. Apparently she's in her late twenties".  
"Percy, come on!" Grover yelled impatiently.  
"You should go".  
I nodded reluctantly. "I suppose so. Love you, Wise Girl. So much".  
"I love you too, Seaweed Brain. Just... be careful, okay?"  
"I will be. I swear it".  
As soon as I had finished speaking, I picked up my bag and slung it over my shoulder before walking off to join Grover. Thank Olympus that Zeus agreed not to zap me out of the sky if I took a plane...  
~Present time~  
I stretched lazily, easing my cramped muscles. It had been just a few hours since our plane had landed in San Francisco, and we were currently sitting in the hotel room which had been booked for us. "Better IM Annabeth before you forget, Percy".  
I nodded, pulling a golden drachma from my bag and walking out onto the room's small balcony. A fine mist rose into the air from the small fountain in the corner, which resulted in a rainbow when the light filtered through it at exactly the right angle. Perfect. "O goddess, accept my offering".  
I flicked the coin into the rainbow, almost half expecting it to fall out the other side. Instead of doing so, it vanished in a shimmer of golden light. I smiled slightly. "Show me Annabeth Chase".  
For a moment, nothing happened. Then I was looking through the mist at a regular-sized apartment in New York. Just in front of me was a black leather sofa, on which a blonde-haired young woman was lounging. She appeared to be lost in thought, her grey eyes focused on the book (which was, naturally, in Greek) that lay open on her lap. I coughed quietly, causing her to jump and look up, her worried expression breaking into a grin when she noticed me. "Percy!"  
I grinned back, once again mourning the fact that she wasn't here in San Francisco with me. Gods, I wanted to throw my arms around her and never, ever, let her go. And if I had my way, that would become possible very, very, soon. “Hey”.  
“Hey. How’s San Francisco?”  
“Different. Hotter. Lonelier. Honestly, I just want to find these two demigods as quickly as possible so that we can come back home. I miss you already”.  
She smiled softly. “I miss you too. It’s just not the same without you here as well”.  
I chuckled in response. “Don’t tell me you’re getting sappy already, Wise Girl. I haven’t even been gone for half a day yet”.  
She shrugged. “I can’t help it. Ever since… Rome… I just can’t imagine going a single day without you”.  
“I can’t imagine going a single day without you either”.  
“Good, because you’re stuck with me, Seaweed Brain. For better or for worse”  
If only she knew how real I was planning to make that statement… She glanced at the clock, muttering a curse in ancient Greek. “As much as I’m enjoying this chat, I should go. It’s late here, and my mom wants to meet up tomorrow to go over some plans for a new temple design on Olympus”.  
I nodded. “I’ll let you go then”.  
“IM me tomorrow afternoon, let me know how you’ve progressed with the search for these two new campers?” she queried hopefully.  
“Of course I will”  
She smiled at me as she slashed her hand through the image and it dissolved into mist, leaving me alone with my thoughts and a view of the sun as it set below the San Francisco skyline, tinting everything around it a vivid orange.  
~The next day~  
The school secretary, a woman in her late-twenties with shoulder-length blonde hair and stormy grey eyes that made me miss Annabeth even more, nodded. “Clara Reid and Michael Warner. That’s who you’re here for”.  
“You’re absolutely sure that they’re the two demigods that you told Chiron about?” Grover queried.  
The older woman nodded, pushing a brown manila folder across her desk to him. Inside were a few crisp white papers and a couple of photographs which appeared to have been taken straight from a school yearbook. One of the photos was of a girl who looked approximately 13 years old, and the other was of a boy about a year older. Both appeared to have blue eyes, closely-cropped brown hair, and slightly tanned skin. “I believe them both to be children of Apollo. Both are excellent musicians, and Michael has a talent for archery, while Clara’s affections seem to lean more towards singing. Also, both have been diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia.”  
“Thank you, Ms. Stevens. We appreciate your help. When can we meet with them?” I asked, eager to get this over with so that I could get on with the real reason that I had actually agreed to accompany Grover on this trip.  
“As soon as you’d like to” Ms. Stevens replied calmly.  
Grover and I glanced at each other, and I nodded. The sooner we got this over with, the sooner we could go home. “Let’s do so now then”.  
Ms. Stevens depressed a button on her desk, leaning forward to speak into the intercom. “Could Clara Reid and Michael Warner please come to the front office right away as there are two people here who need to speak with you about your families? Thank you”.  
She took her finger off of the button and the three of us sat back to wait. It wasn’t long before there was a hesitant knock on the door, and worried muttering coming from the other side. “Come in”.  
The door opened with barely a creak and the two teenagers whose pictures we had seen only minutes ago stepped through it and into the room. “Ms. Stevens, is everything alright?” the girl queried.  
The secretary smiled kindly at her and the boy behind her, before gesturing to us. “Everything’s fine on my side of things, Clara. You should direct your questions to these two. Clara, Michael, this is Percy Jackson and Grover Underwood. They just want to ask you a couple of questions about your parents”.  
The girl turned to us almost immediately, while the boy remained quiet, observing us calmly from where he stood by the door. Now that I saw them both in person, it was easy to see exactly why Ms. Stevens thought them to be children of the sun god. “What’s going on? Why are you here?” Clara demanded.  
“We need to talk to you… to both of you… about your parents. More specifically, your fathers” Grover said simply.  
Clara’s eyes hardened. “I don’t know my father. Neither of us do”.  
I glanced questioningly over at Michael, and he merely nodded, before moving towards us and taking a seat near Clara. “Clara’s right. She lives with her mother and stepfather, along with her half-sister, in a small house a couple of blocks from here. I live with my mother in a two-bedroom a couple of doors down from her” he said softly.  
I couldn’t help but notice that the way he spoke was quiet, almost shy. The manner in which Clara spoke was almost exactly the same. “Have either of your mothers ever told you anything about your fathers?”  
“I did ask my mother about him once. She said that he was a wealthy, powerful, man, and that their relationship was a secret. They spent a few weeks together, and he knew that she was expecting a baby, but he was forced to leave before I was born. He never visited us after that” Clara said softly.  
I couldn’t help but note the similarities between her story and my own. “And what about yours, Michael?” Grover queried.  
“Only the same things that Clara was told by her mother” the boy responded.  
Grover and I exchanged a glance. It was getting more and more likely by the second that Clara and Michael were actually demigods. “Has anything strange ever happened to either of you? Like… Have you caused something to happen that you were never properly able to explain? Or seen something that shouldn’t exist, yet no-one else has believed you when you told them about what you saw?” I queried.  
“What does any of this have to do with our fathers?” Clara demanded.  
“If our suspicions are correct, then these questions have everything to do with your fathers”.  
The two teenagers glanced at each other, as if trying to decide whether or not to tell us what we wanted to know. Finally, Clara nodded. “I don’t really like to talk about it, but here goes… Three years ago, I was walking home from school when I had this feeling, like someone was watching me. At first I couldn’t see anyone, so I just kept walking. After walking for a few minutes though, I felt a shadow fall across mine, and I heard this horrible, piercing, screech from the trees just ahead of me. All of a sudden this bird-like… metal thing… dove at me, digging its razor sharp claws into my arm. As I ran for home, it started shooting its feathers at me. Once I got home, though, it appeared to get scared off by my half-brother playing with the drum kit he got for his seventh birthday”.  
“You were attacked by a metal bird?” I queried.  
Clara nodded. “You don’t believe me, do you?”  
I shook my head. “Actually, I do believe you. My girlfriend and I were attacked by similar creatures ourselves a few years ago. What about you, Michael?”  
The boy looked up nervously. “Um… The school auditorium exploded about a year ago. It was claimed that the source of the fire that caused it to explode was a gas leak, but I could have sworn I saw a nine-headed lizard-dinosaur-thing skulking around the school only minutes before. I told myself that my eyes were just playing tricks on me, but I’ve had nightmares about it practically ever since”  
Grover and I glanced at each other. By the sound of things, Clara Reid had been attacked by a Stymphalian Bird, and the creature that Michael had apparently spotted before the auditorium exploded fitted the description of the Hydra. “A lizard-dinosaur-thing? Were its heads roughly diamond-shaped?” Grover queried.  
Michael nodded wordlessly. Yup, that was definitely a Hydra. “Then the two of you are lucky that you haven’t attracted more monsters yet…”  
Clara gave me a suspicious glance. “Monsters?”  
“Clara, the bird that attacked you was a Stymphalian Bird. Michael, the creature that you saw skulking around was the Hydra”.  
“How is that possible? Those creatures were killed by Heracles in the Greek myths!” Clara exclaimed.  
“Monsters respawn eventually, Clara. It could take minutes, a day, a week, even a lifetime if you’re lucky, but monsters will always respawn eventually” Grover responded calmly, his voice perfectly level.  
“You sound like you have firsthand experience with these kinds of things” Michael mused.  
“We do”.  
I shot a quick glance at Grover, who removed his fake feet to reveal his hooves. “I’m a satyr. Half man, half goat” Grover said simply.  
Clara looked at me. “And what’s your part in all this?” she demanded.  
“I’m a son of Poseidon, the god of the sea. I’m a demigod. Half human, half god. Just like both you and Michael”.  
“That’s… It’s not possible…” Clara muttered.  
I chuckled. “That’s what I thought too, the first time I learned about what I really was. But denying it doesn’t make it any less true. In the end, we just have to do our best to accept it”.  
I got to my feet, followed a second later by Grover. “Thank you very much for your assistance in this matter, Ms. Stevens. It was very nice to meet all of you. Clara, Michael, I have an errand to run while I’m in the Bay Area, so Grover will be accompanying you back to your houses to sort this out with your parents”.  
Grover nodded, as I politely excused myself from the office and left through the front doors, flagging down a cab as soon as I was off of the grounds and giving the driver an address before settling back into the seat to wait.  
~Approximately 30 to 40 minutes later~  
The door was opened by a pretty Asian woman with red highlighted hair tied in a bun. “Percy Jackson?”  
I smiled. It had been roughly four years since Annabeth’s step-mother and I had last seen each other, yet she still remembered me. “Hi, Mrs. Chase. Is Annabeth’s father here? I need to talk to him about something”.  
She nodded in response. “Yes, he is. Come in, I’ll let him know that you’re here”.  
“I appreciate it”.  
I followed her into the living room, which was just as messy as it had been the last time I had been there. One of their two cats was fast asleep on the couch, and there were still bits of Lego scattered untidily everywhere. “Please, take a seat”.  
As I did so, she headed in the direction of the stairs. After waiting for around five minutes, Mrs. Chase came back downstairs, followed by a man that I recognized instantly as my girlfriend’s father. He smiled at me. “Percy. How are you doing?”  
“I’m fine, thank you”.  
“And Annabeth?”  
I could tell he was bracing himself for bad news. Especially considering the fact that, last time we had been here, we had been trying to rescue Annabeth from Atlas and Luke. “She’s well. She’s almost fully recovered from our experiences two years ago. Actually, I’m glad that you asked about her, since it’s kind of my reason for being here. I need to ask you something. I’d prefer to ask both of you, actually”.  
Both of them sat down nearby, and Mrs. Chase nodded calmly. “Ask away”.  
“Meeting Annabeth is the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I can’t imagine what my life would be like without her in it. I love her with everything I am, and I sincerely want to spend the rest of my life proving it to her. I’d like to ask you for your permission to ask her to marry me”.  
Both of the adults glanced at each other briefly, as if having some form of silent conversation. Meanwhile, my mind wandered to the clashing sounds coming from upstairs. It sounded like Bobby and Matthew were playing some sort of video game that involved sword-fighting. After a few minutes, by the end of which I was starting to wonder whether I should just make an excuse and leave, Annabeth’s father nodded. “You came here to get our permission to ask Annabeth to marry you. You have it. Make her happy, alright?”  
“I will, I swear it. Thank you”.  
“You’re welcome. And good luck!” Annabeth’s father called as I made my way out of the house, a smile spreading across my face. I quickly hailed a cab and gave the driver the address of the hotel Grover and I were staying at. It was time to start making my plans.  
~John F. Kennedy Airport, a couple of days later~  
“Percy!”  
I could hear the familiar voice almost as soon as I stepped out of the arrivals gate into the airport itself, and barely had enough time to put my bag down before a blonde-haired girl tackled me, throwing her arms around me in a tight hug. My smile widened, and I hugged her back, placing a chaste kiss to her forehead. “I missed you so much”.  
I breathed in, grinning into my girlfriend’s hair as I inhaled the scent of her shampoo. Mmm, lemons. “I missed you too. I’m glad to be home”.  
“So you found the two demigods then?”  
“Yup. Clara Reid and Michael Warner. Both children of Apollo. Grover’s taking them both to Camp to get them settled in”.  
“I see”.  
I smiled at my girlfriend (who, I hoped, would soon become my fiancée), and picked up my bag again before slipping my right arm around her waist. “Let’s go home”.  
And as we headed for the door, chatting idly, I knew, without a doubt, that I was truly home.

**Author's Note:**

> The way Percy talks to the kids and Ms Stevens makes me think of the way that law enforcement or military are often seen speaking to people (in other media). I'm not sure exactly why that happened, but I'm gonna go with it since it sounds professional.


End file.
